Loading…
VRSZ
This sets the art on your cards and whose commentary you read on each verse. You can change it later in settings.
Translation
Loading…
What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
John Chrysostom
"For indeed we that are in this tabernacle do groan, not for that we would be unclothed, but that we would be clothed upon." Here again he hath utterly and manifestly stopped the mouths of the heretics, showing that he is not speaking absolutely of a body differing in identity, but of corruption and incorruption: 'For we do not therefore groan,' saith he, 'that we may be delivered from the body: for of this we do not wish to be unclothed; but we hasten to be delivered from the corruption that is in it'. …
Theophylact of Ohrid
Since what was said — "we groan," desiring to be freed from the body — might seem burdensome, for the attachment of the soul to the body is inexpressible, he says: we groan not about simply being freed from the body, but about desiring to be clothed with incorruption. We desire not to be stripped of the body, but to be freed from corruption, so that corruption may be destroyed and annihilated in life, not the body. For we are burdened not because we have a body, but because it is corruptible. …
Irenaeus
But we do now receive a certain portion of His Spirit, tending towards perfection, and preparing us for incorruption, being little by little accustomed to receive and bear God; which also the apostle terms "an earnest," that is, a part of the honour which has been promised us by God, where he says in the Epistle to the Ephesians, "In which ye also, having heard the word of truth, the Gospel of your salvation, believing in which we have been sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance." This …
Western Saints
Thomas Aquinas
Thus, therefore, the desire of grace burns for a reward, but it is retarded by the desire of nature. He shows this when he says: For while we are still in this tent, we sigh with anxiety. Herein, therefore, he first shows the condition of the natural desire; secondly, he shows that even this condition of the natural desire is from God (v. 5). …
Translation